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My Daughters Wisdom Is Greater Than My Own

I am fortunate that my daughter respects my wisdom
and will take any suggestions
or advice I give her quite seriously.

When I do suggest something to her
she doesn’t resist it, nor does she
automatically follow it.

She incorporates my advice into her decision making process

What she does is take it into consideration.
She adds it to the information she’s using
to make her decision and thinks about it
independently and intelligently.

Then she listens to her own heart
and makes the decision she feels is best for her.

It is important to teach the skill of decision making

The fact that she does this is not an accidental thing.
It is a result of how I have
taught her decision making.

I have never wanted her to feel that
she was unable to make decisions for herself.
Decision making is one of the
most important skills we can teach our kids.

It certainly helps if we have a good understanding
of how to make intelligent and
powerful decisions ourselves.

It is not common for kids to respect their parents opinions

One of the main elements as a father is that
I wanted her to take my perspective into account
in an open and receptive manner.

This is not a common thing for kids
to do with their parents.
It is more common for them toimmediately defend or resist suggestions from their parents.

It has been my experience that
parents rarely realize that they themselves
have created this situation.

It is also possible to create the opposite.
A relationship where your kids really care
about your opinion and seek it out.

Create an atmosphere of respect

In order to have this happen I realized
that I had to create an atmosphere
of respect between us.

If I wanted her to respect meI knew she had to feel that I respected her.

I knew I had lots to teach her
and that my guidance was very important
as she learned to navigate her way through the world.

I saw the importance of what she had to teach me

I recognized early on that
while I had many important things
to teach my daughter
the things that she had to teach me
were in fact much more valuable.

I could teach her
about manners and money
about relationships and work ethics
about responsibility and community
about communication and teamwork.

Lots of importance and practical things.

From the day she was born she taught me about
love, joy, curiosity,
connection to the spirit,
play and authenticity.

Which of these two lists seems more valuable to you?

What she has been able to teach me
has always seemed more important than
what I have been able to teach her.

In many ways she came in perfect
and my job has mostly been to
preserve that perfection
rather than to get in its way.

This is why I feel she deserves a very deep respect.
Her wisdom exceeds mine.

She feels my respect and naturally wants to reciprocate

The fact is that my daughter has always felt
how deeply I respect her wisdom and
this has made it easy for her to respect mine.

Our relationship actually goes far beyond respect.
There is a deep connection of friendship, admiration,
support, humour and love that we share.

It is important to set Powerful Primary Parenting Priorities

It is a relationship that I have cultivated over the years.
I have always kept the quality of our relationship
as one of my primary parenting priorities.

It is a worthwhile exercise to consistently examine and reexamine what are your
primary parenting priorities.

Doing this will help to guide your decisions.
The more conscious you are of your parenting goals,
that is,
what do you want for your children?
What do you want to impart to them?
What attitudes, skills and knowledge
do you want them to acquire?

The more conscious you are of these things
the more clear it is how you
need to interact with them.